It's starting to look like...destiny!

This guy is giving me a flashback to Miguel Cabrera in '03....Miggy was even skinny back then!

The losing pitcher Chris Archer actually looked pretty good except for his walks. He got out of a bases loaded, nobody out jam in the 13th.

The current practice is to bring prospect starters up to the bigs just for starts, sometimes to just send them back down after the game. Earl Weaver said the best place for a young starter is middle relief. The Rays seem to believe the best place for a young starter is in relief in the heat of the pennant race. It worked well for Price and Moore.

I love that clip of Machado pump faking. Amazing play.

That was a great play, but I especially love how they call it the biggest defensive play of his career -- all 32 games of it.

I liked Bordick's reaction: "wow"

I love that Showalter gave the green light on 3-0. I think that is something that MLB hitters do far too rarely. Now, Machado didn't really swing at a great pitch but having a rip on 3-0 is a pretty good bet for a competent MLB hitter. That should be fundamentally batting practice and when a single wins the game...go for it.

I love that Showalter gave the green light on 3-0. I think that is something that MLB hitters do far too rarely. Now, Machado didn't really swing at a great pitch but having a rip on 3-0 is a pretty good bet for a competent MLB hitter. That should be fundamentally batting practice and when a single wins the game...go for it.

This may have been in reaction to the previous inning; with the bases loaded, one out, and only two defenders in the outfield, Wieters took three balls to get to 3-0, then took two strikes, and then struck out swinging. Seems like a player should be able to produce a lazy fly ball in that situation...

He copied that play from me, obviously. I did that in old-man slowpitch softball three weeks ago.

I was playing first, and there was a runner on first. A guy hit it to left, and our leftfielder overthrew the cutoff man. The guy who was on first took off for third. I scooped it up, pumped fake to third, then turned around and tagged the guy on first who took a few steps off when I pumped faked.

Like I said, he obviously copied me :)

Just watched the video... I loved that play, another reason to like the kid, although the shortstop isn't given enough credit for being where he was supposed to be for that play to work.

I make that play in kickball a lot, trying to lure runners into making a big turn.

I just watched the Machado video. That takes a combination of advanced situational thinking, great baseball instincts, and huge balls of brass. Wow.

The only thing lost in all of this is that if he had thrown to first the runner is probably out. Sure he can make an error but he also can make an error on what he did do.

In the post game interview Manny said he didn't think he could get the runner going to first so he did what he did.
Split second decision that wroked for the best - for the O's that is

The current practice is to bring prospect starters up to the bigs just for starts, sometimes to just send them back down after the game. Earl Weaver said the best place for a young starter is middle relief. The Rays seem to believe the best place for a young starter is in relief in the heat of the pennant race. It worked well for Price and Moore.

I'm a big fan of rookie starters pitching in relief, even though that line of development makes a lot of SABR types go nuts.

As for Archer, he might be better suited for relief anyway, because of those pesky walks.

The only thing lost in all of this is that if he had thrown to first the runner is probably out. Sure he can make an error but he also can make an error on what he did do.

I was watching it on MASN, and saw a few replays. Those didn't really show how far Longoria was up the line, so you might be right, as Longoria is not running well. The ball was a very slow hopper and Machado had been playing back, from the time it took to get to the ball my assumption was that even a Molina would have made it to first.

I love that Showalter gave the green light on 3-0. I think that is something that MLB hitters do far too rarely. Now, Machado didn't really swing at a great pitch but having a rip on 3-0 is a pretty good bet for a competent MLB hitter. That should be fundamentally batting practice and when a single wins the game...go for it.

Makes perfect sense with 2 out, winning run on 2B. A single wins the game, a walk means the next guy still has to reach base to win it. You can't count on the next guy getting a 3-0 count, so taking advantage of that count makes perfect sense.

With Wieters you take any pitch that's close since a ball wins the game at that point. I was listening to that one on the radio so I don't know if Wieters took pitches on the edge or right down the middle.

I'm a big fan of rookie starters pitching in relief, even though that line of development makes a lot of SABR types go nuts.

It does? I didn't notice that. I thought SABR guys would be on board with doing as Earl Weaver did.

The only thing lost in all of this is that if he had thrown to first the runner is probably out.

I wasn't at the game, and none of the replays have shown how hard Longoria was running, but based solely on the speed and location of the ball, and how far back the third baseman was playing, it looked like a certain base hit.

I'm a big fan of rookie starters pitching in relief, even though that line of development makes a lot of SABR types go nuts.


It does? I didn't notice that. I thought SABR guys would be on board with doing as Earl Weaver did.

That is what I was thinking. I assumed the best thought process was to allow the guy to relieve for a little while and get him comfortable and ease him into the rotation as the fifth starter.

That is also what Larry Dierker did. Of course his catcher, first baseman, and second baseman ran him out of town so you can't have everything.

My impression is that SABR types go nuts when the relieving goes on for several years despite the presence of massively inferior options in the rotation and/or it's not clear when if ever they'll move him into the rotation. At least those were the issues with Johan Santana.

I sort of have this image in my head of Showalter, Machado, Jones and Wieters leading the children of Baltimore on a epic Rockyesque run through the streets until finally they climb Fort McHenry or something in triumph. Then I remembered that there's no way Showalter could run that long and that nothing good would happen with so many children of Baltimore on the streets.

I time 2.8 seconds from contact with the bat to Manny touching the ball.

On a similar play a week earlier, Machado got the ball into the first baseman’s mitt 1.6 seconds after touching the ball.

So ~4.4 seconds seems like a reasonable estimate for the amount of time Machado had.

I can’t find a good recent replay for Longoria’s home-to-first time, but he took 4.7 seconds on this RBI groundout last year where he is clearly not running hard.

I know Longoria is taking it easy since returning from the DL, but he certainly looked like he was going to run hard in the brief glimpse we have in the replay, and the game situation certainly called for it.

My guess is that Manny was correct to think he didn't have a play at first.

Incredibly, Kyle Seager got Rajai Davis with the exact same play last night. Clearly Raj needs to watch more out of town highlights.

My impression is that SABR types go nuts when the relieving goes on for several years despite the presence of massively inferior options in the rotation and/or it's not clear when if ever they'll move him into the rotation. At least those were the issues with Johan Santana.

Santana: 2000 as a rule 5 pick, has a 6.49 ERA
2001 pitches 43 innings, mostly in relief, 4.74 ERA and unimpressive K rate
2002 Becomes SANTANA, 11.4 K per 9 innings, 14 starts and 13 relief appearances. Allows HR to Home Run Kennedy in the ALCS clincher, but clearly has shown he can pitch at this point.
2003: Starts year in the bullpen, finishes in rotation. Total of 45 games, 18 starts.

I would measure the time from Santana showing he should be in the rotation to getting a fulltime job there in months, not in years.

I would measure the time from Santana showing he should be in the rotation to getting a fulltime job there in months, not in years.

Yes, but people were pissed about it. I remember it was a daily obsession on Twins blogs.

I thought SABR guys would be on board with doing as Earl Weaver did.

"We" are. But what Weaver did was pitch a guy 2-3 innings at a time then give him a few days off the pitch him 2-3 innings. So he was like mini-starting to learn how to pitch at the ML level and how to work his way through a lineup.

These days it's rare to see relievers go more than one inning, especially one that's any good (which hopefully an Archer type would be). "We" do go rather apoplectic when a Chapman (or Bard or Feliz) is put into short relief. Somewhat justified perhaps -- given how over-rated the contributions of top set-up men and closers are, there's a real chance the kid is gonna get stuck in relief.

Yes, but people were pissed about it. I remember it was a daily obsession on Twins blog

It was starting 2003 in the bullpen that pissed people off. And understandably (OK, "pissed" is not understandable but you know what I mean). Here was a guy who'd done his apprenticeship, pitched really well in 2002 and transitioned to the rotation ... and the Twins put him back in the pen for 2003. It's not clear it was part of some grand plan as they had him in the pen until July 11 (excepting 3 spot starts). On July 10, the Twins were 2 games under 500 and the guy everybody knew was their best pitcher had just 66 innings. It was Minnesota's version of the Strasburg controversy -- which is to say nobody outside of a 100 mile radius of the Twin Cities had any idea there was a controversy.

Of course, in hindsight, you can't say I told you so. The 2003 team ended up taking the division anyway and Santana threw over 1100 innings from 2004-8.

I would measure the time from Santana showing he should be in the rotation to getting a fulltime job there in months, not in years.

I think part of the frustration is that the Twins were using Santana as the last guy out of the pen early in 2003; it may have been to get him opportunities at multi-innings outings, but they certainly weren't using him in high-leverage outings. I'm sure if the Twins were using him in a Fingers/Gossage-style relief role, the blog/stat guys would have been plenty happy. But it seemed like he wasn't even really valued.

But, you're right, it was still months.

"We" do go rather apoplectic when a Chapman (or Bard or Feliz) is put into short relief

Bard was more of a conventional "failed minor-league starter who found success as a reliever" type. Check out his numbers as a minor-league starter sometime.

It does? I didn't notice that. I thought SABR guys would be on board with doing as Earl Weaver did.

All I know is every time a minor league starter spends a year or two relieving everyone around here ####### up a storm about it.

Bard was more of a conventional "failed minor-league starter who found success as a reliever" type. Check out his numbers as a minor-league starter sometime.

I'm just gonna go ahead and give myself a big ol' pat on the back for this one. It was so obvious that putting Bard back in the rotation was playing with fire. I moaned all spring about how bad of an idea it was and, lo and behold, it failed. So, uh, go me.

All I know is every time a minor league starter spends a year or two relieving everyone around here ####### up a storm about it.

A year or two is reasons to #### up a storm. A few months to a year is a different story entirely.